Cars

Driving with the windows down blasting Soul Bossa Nova, the loose flap of ceiling upholstery fluttering in the breeze, I find something therapeutic in all the driving that I do. Some people need a cup of coffee (or three) in the morning; I swear I'm not myself until I've had my thirty minute commute with my music playing. I read that it's important to remember that a car is just an appliance, but they really feel like so much more than that. It's an extension of my home, the setting for many of my memories and where I spend at least an hour of my waking life almost every day. Add in that my current car was inherited from my grandmother who passed a year and a day ago, and you will have a picture of why it will be so hard to let that car go later this week.

The last time I took it into the shop, I asked my mechanic (an old trusted family friend) when I should consider getting a different car. He handed me my invoice and said, "Let me put it like this: this is your monthly car payment."

For the past couple of weeks I've been looking at and test-driving different cars, and this Saturday I am scheduled to buy a new one and trade in the old one. In the process, I've been experiencing what my mom calls "embarrassment of riches". It feels almost unfairly decadent that my life is such that I have been able to save up a sizable down payment and will be getting a brand-new car at the age of 25, especially when my mom only got her first new car last year at age 59. I was excited and eager to talk about the shopping process when I was just looking around, but now that it's actually happening I almost feel ashamed.

Those feelings aside, I feel like this is how things needed to happen. Any doubts about my choice were relieved when it turned out that a car with all my specifications (plus a couple of extra ones I didn't dare assume I could get) was sitting twenty feet away on the showroom floor. Saturday I will be exchanging my old family sedan for the car of my dreams, a new vehicle for my adventures, my commutes, for so many of my memories to come. I am excited and grateful, it is just hard to imagine letting go of the old one. I find myself squeezing the steering wheel extra hard sometimes as I sit and wait on a light.

It's more than a car. It was a gift from my grandparents, a shelter, a powerful engine that got me out of some sticky situations. It's where I kept my rollerblades, where I sat and listened to the rain and the new Sigur Rós album during a summer storm last year. It's how I maintained three long-distance relationships, how I made it to Cedar Point and Kings Island, how I shared the family cottage with friends. I learned how to fishtail in it, drove through snows so treacherous it was technically illegal to drive, chased a creep who was chasing a friend, drove home a drugged up dog in a Christmas bandana after surgery. I've driven friends places as they've napped in the back seat.

I think I will miss the old car, but there will be a new one full of new possibilities to keep me excited and looking forward. I look forward to watching the mileage climb, to learning all the new switches and functions, to having music from my phone that I can control through the car instead of being tempted to fuss with my phone while driving. And gosh, I'll have a sunroof. It will be everything I've wanted in a car.

I don't want to be embarrassed. I just want to be grateful and free to enjoy what my life has given me, even if sometimes it's just stuff.

Evicted

I stood at the kitchen sink washing my hands, gazing out the kitchen window. A bunny hobbled up toward the house with a clump of twigs and grass in its mouth, disappeared under the windowsill, and hobbled away empty-mouthed. Since we have a fenced-in yard populated by at least two bunny-destroying little dogs, I went to investigate. Sure enough, a little burrow was being constructed under the kitchen window between some dense greenery my mom had growing. It was only just a divot so far, with a huge tumbleweed of rabbit fluff nestled inside.

The bunny came back into the yard and froze, nostrils hard at work and mouth full of new twigs. She stared at me, and feeling like a complete monster, I chased her toward the corner of the fence where she had been getting in. I went inside to grab a yard stick. I stuck it in the divot to be sure it went no further, and set about deconstructing the little home she had been making. It seemed a terrible waste, so I picked her fur up with the edge of the stick and carried it clump by clump, depositing it just on the other side of the fence. She waited a little beyond, still watching, her mouth still full of construction material. She seemed to be wondering if I would go away so she could resume her task.

I wouldn't.

After I was satisfied she had enough of her insulation back, I went for some bricks and one by one, stacked them against the gap in the fence she had been using to get in and out. By the time I was done, she had left. Her pile of fur lay where I left it.

The next day, I went out to see if she had reclaimed her fur to rebuild. All but one small tuft was gone, but it had also been a windy day so I can't be sure it didn't simply just blow away.

I still see a bunny exploring around outside our fence and wonder if it's the same bunny, and if she's still traumatized from the rude eviction to which I subjected her. As awful as it felt to displace her, it probably felt better than knowing she and her babies were almost certain dog food.

Life's Not Fair

"Poor us, 'needing' to 'lose' all our PTO to go on cool family vacations."

"Well, it beats using it all on having a tumor removed like last year."

Bad news comes in threes, when it rains it pours, you take the good with the bad, etc.... It seems to me that life is seldom in balance of good and bad at one point in time. Like there are good stretches and bad stretches, and if you are lucky they average out in the long run. I made the joke to my sister that all the upcoming good things in my life (a trip to Germany, a trip to Disney World, and getting a new car) are the upswing from the last two years, which was a montage of "getting a tumor carved out and being dumped a whole lot". Ok, not a whole lot, but the only times it has happened to me were remarkably close together.

Now I feel almost ashamed of myself for all the happy, fun, exciting things on the horizon. It feels like I did not earn them, which honestly is largely true. So much in life is circumstantial and beyond my control. It wasn't my idea for my sister to move to an exotic location, fall in love there, and plan a wonderful trip for the rest of the family surrounding her wedding. It wasn't my idea for the thought of her starting a family to launch my mom into a desperate ploy to be sure we go on an American vacation before babies anchor my sister in Germany even more. And my mom didn't have to let me live with her and accrue a down payment that will allow my first non-hand-me-down car to possibly be my dream car.

What it comes down to is that I am incredibly blessed. There is not a great number of people in my life, but the people in my life are great. Yes, I am kind of coasting on the coat tails of those more ambitious than me, but we all play our own little role, and who knows what one I might have to play in the future.

In the meantime, I try to ease my guilt by being more responsible around my mom's house. I sleep downstairs on the couch so her old dog, who is at risk of falling off her bed to his death, can safely sleep with me there and know he has company. I am trying harder at work, an incredibly frustrating effort since I still feel like I have no damned idea what I'm doing. And I'm trying to be a more proactive friend, reaching out first instead of childishly wondering why so-and-so hasn't been texting me.

It's all very silly... I can't retroactively earn the good things coming my way, and this is all stuff that I should have been doing anyway. But if my broken child-logic makes me be less of a drain on the people who reward me everyday, I think it's still a good thing.

How It Goes

"How's your blogging going these days?"

I dare say it isn't, really. 

(Hai, it's me.)

However, I have noticed some people are still visiting, so I want to say that it means a lot to me.

A couple of years ago, I had a blog with a decent following and cute, consistent premise. I would basically tell and illustrate personal anecdotes I thought were poignant, which I think I've only really done once on this one, and with no pictures. I dropped the old blog for personal reasons, and started a new one for even more personal reasons, and promptly, life felt weird.

I think I was able to be consistent with the old blog because it was a very consistent time in my life. I was commuting to college, which I'm good at school; I was in the same relationship the whole time, comfortably feeling like I was in love; family life was stable and nothing new ever happened. Now I'm training for an even more mentally challenging career; my social life is reliant on friends who can't always be there for me when I feel like I need them; and my last grandparent died, my brother changed his name and this very day my sister bought a wedding dress. My feelings are everywhere, and while I've written a post-like little Something almost every day, nothing feels appropriate for long.

But there's always some whimsy in my head I can belch out into words, and I think trying to get back into that will do me some good.

An Open Letter To Lunch Buddies Fruit Flavored Snacks

What the hell is this?

Happy April Fools' Day!